Redemption
by Dayja
Summary: When Steve's memories of Howard and Tony's clash one too many time, Steve finally seeks some answers. He might not like what he learns. WARNING: past sexual abuse and violence (young Tony/OC)


**Warnings** : This is a very dark story that involves non-graphic sexual abuse of a minor. There is also mention of extreme violence.

This story was inspired by a prompt: Tony can't comprehend that he was raped and keeps insisting that it was just him losing his virginity at a young age.

How young is up to you but it is fairly early.

 **Disclaimer** : I do not own/am not associated with/make no money from the Avengers

 **The Story**

"Why do you hate your dad so much?"

As often as he had thought that question at Tony Stark, Steve could never think of a way to properly ask it. He wanted to know, wanted to figure out some bridge between the Howard Steve knew and the dad Tony hated, but it was hard to find a way that didn't sound accusatory. Besides, what if Howard really had done something horrible? War changed people, after all. And how well would a child understand something like shell shock, or the myriad of other conditions violence can inspire? Or maybe Howard just wasn't a good father. Some men were perfectly decent people but couldn't relate to a child to save their lives. He was half afraid to know the answer, that knowing would either make him hate Howard or, if there really wasn't a good answer, hate Tony. So Steve wondered, but he didn't ask.

Until he did. Until the question blurted itself out in spite of himself, after Tony had answered Steve's suggestion that Miss Potts might prefer him to just offer her a proper, heartfelt apology rather than the ten foot singing shoe clock.

"Pepper likes shoes," Tony insisted. "Anyway, I'm allergic to shows of affection. Blame pops. I inherited the allergy from him."

And if it had been any other day, Steve might have just shrugged and possibly sent a discrete warning Pepper's way of the impending gift. But it wasn't just any other day; it was the anniversary of the day his plane went down in ice, and the past was particularly present in his mind just then. He remembered Howard fondly, and the discrepancy between his memory and Tony's was just too much in that moment, and the question popped out.

Tony blinked at him, and for half a second he looked like he was going to shrug and offer some half answer, another rendition of 'he didn't love me' or 'I don't hate him, I hardly knew the man; he sent me away as soon as I could walk'. Instead Tony paused and to Steve's surprise it seemed he might get a real answer.

"I know he was your friend," Tony said carefully, "But he wasn't the nicest of men. Nice men don't invent bombs that can kill entire cities. He could be brutal when he wanted to be."

"Did he hurt you?" Steve asked, a cold sensation filling his stomach, and he wondered suddenly if he really wanted to know.

"He didn't hit me," Tony answered, and Steve felt a bit of warmth return until Tony continued with, "He beat a man to death in front of me when I was ten."

Steve stared, opened his mouth to ask questions, then closed it again. 'He must have had a good reason,' is what he wanted to say, but he bit it back. He didn't know what to say instead.

"And it wasn't some Nazi or kidnapper or whatever, if that's what you're thinking," Tony continued. "He was a good man, and dad just stormed up to him and shoved him on the floor and just started punching him again and again. Obi had to run in and pull him off. And Aaron just lay on the floor bleeding and wheezing until the ambulance came. They wouldn't let me go with him. I couldn't go with Dad either, when the police came. Not that I wanted to. I had to stay with Obi."

"There's no record of Howard murdering anyone," Steve said, and then winced slightly at how that came out. He didn't want to sound like he was calling Tony a liar, he was just genuinely confused. Tony's story didn't at all sound like the Howard Steve knew.

"He got out of it," Tony answered. "I think he got Fury to help. Or maybe he just paid people off. I tried to see Aaron later, and they told me he was dead, and they called it an accident, that it hadn't anything to do with my dad hitting him; it just happened. And if he wasn't dead, they said he'd be in jail, and how is that fair? My dad attacked him, and they wanted to put my boyfriend in jail and let my dad go?"

This time, Steve didn't blurt anything out, mostly because he had too many confusing thoughts at once to say any one of them. 'Boyfriend?!' was mixed up with 'didn't you say you were ten years old?!'

Tony watched him carefully and Steve could only guess at what expressions he was making as he tried to process everything Tony had just told him into some kind of sense.

"You're not homophobic, are you?" Tony asked, not sounding accusing. If anything, he sounded sympathetic, like how he always did when something of the modern age shocked Steve. "Because I'm kind of bi, so if this is going to freak you out, I can have JARVIS update you on modern sexuality."

"You know all kinds of sexuality existed in the forties too," Steve answered, which probably sounded better than 'aren't you with a dame?' would have come across. Anyway, if Steve hadn't come across the issue of same sex couples before then he must have been walking around New York with his eyes shut. He decided not to be offended that Tony thought he might be phobic about it; he did come from a time when it was illegal after all.

Tony got that same mixed expression of shock and glee that he always got when Steve said anything that had to do with sex or swear words, before it returned to something more somber.

"He was my first boyfriend," Tony said. "First everything really. First crush. First lover. We couldn't do much out in the open of course; it was still taboo and of course there was the age difference…"

"How old did you say you were?" Steve asked. He had thought Tony had said ten, but obviously that was wrong. From the story, he had to be at least fifteen. He tried not to cringe at the thought of Howard beating his son's lover to death in front of him. Was Howard homophobic? Was that what this was about? Was the boy, Aaron, another teenager? Did Howard kill a kid in front of his kid for daring to be his boyfriend?

"…You know how I'm a genius, right?" Tony said instead of just giving his age. He looked strangely anxious, as though there were ever any doubt about that.

"Everyone knows you're a genius," Steve answered.

"What you have to understand is that I was way beyond other kids my age. I was doing things at four years old that others couldn't do until they were adults, if then. I was doing college level work by the time I was ten years old. You get that, right? I've tried to explain it before, but everyone just hears a number and they think of other kids that age, and they can't get past it. They think I'm like them, and I'm not."

Steve just stared at him, that cold feeling returning to his stomach with a vengeance. This couldn't be going where Steve thought it was going. Tony just kept talking, babbling really, the way he always did when he tried to explain why it was obviously the best and only option that he run into the bank without his armor to talk to the enhanced bank robber, of course it wasn't too dangerous, Steve! Except this wasn't about a dangerous mission, this was about something from Tony's past, something dark and traumatic and Steve wasn't sure he wanted to know exactly what Tony was trying to convince them both to be true.

"So I met this intern," Tony babbled on, "and he finally saw me, really saw me. And he realized I was into him, and I didn't even know I was; I don't think I even knew two guys could be into each other. And he understood how advanced I was, how it wasn't just my brain, and maybe my body still needed to catch up, but you know I've always wanted to fly before I could walk, and he was gentle and kind and loving and he never did anything that hurt, and he showed me so much, and I think I loved him."

"How old were you, Tony?" Steve asked again. Because as desperately as he wanted Tony to blurt out 'sixteen, of course, same age as the intern, what are you thinking?' it was very obvious this wasn't going to be the answer.

"You're getting weirded out by this, aren't you," Tony said instead of giving any sort of straight answer. "I can see you're getting weirded out. Look, I know you want Howard to be some sort of saint in this, but honestly, he really wasn't. I was with Aaron one day and he came home early and caught us kind of…we weren't even doing anything at the time, well, we were doing naked cuddling, but the sexy times were all over so it didn't look that bad, and Howard just went mental. He yanked me out of Aaron's arms and just set me in a chair before shoving Aaron down and kicking him in the crotch and then just…punching him again and again and again. Obi came in and pulled him off. Everyone called him a pedophile and all sorts of horrible names, and no one seemed sorry at all that Dad had just half killed him."

Finally, Tony stopped talking and just looked at Steve. He seemed to be searching his face for something, perhaps understanding or acceptance.

"You were ten years old," Steve said at last. "I didn't mishear you. You were ten and he was…what…eighteen? Twenty?"

Tony didn't answer. His silence was answer enough. Steve honestly didn't know what to say next. Oddly enough, a good deal of what he felt was relief. Howard wasn't a monster. He was a father who came upon his son being hurt and he reacted. Perhaps he didn't react in the best way, but Steve couldn't honestly say he wouldn't have done the same thing if he had been there. A part of him wanted to shake Tony, to shout at him 'don't you understand? Your 'boyfriend' was an evil pedophile and your dad loved you and he tried to protect you! He was a good man!'

But that would be the absolutely wrong thing to say. This wasn't about Steve or his memory of Howard. It was about Tony, and as far as Tony was concerned, it happened just as he said: his father beat his lover to death in front of him for no good reason.

"Obi understood," Tony said. "He understood I was older than my age."

Steve had learned just enough of Tony's history to know that Obi had tried to murder Tony on multiple occasions. He didn't point this out. He didn't say 'I'm glad Aaron is dead, because if he weren't I'd go out and murder him myself.' He didn't say 'Howard obviously loved you a lot.' He didn't say a lot of things. Bullies were so much easier to face; there were people who hurt others and victims that they hurt, and everyone on all sides were quite clear who was who.

How do you fight an abuser when they are long dead and the 'victim' loves them and refuses to see that they have been abused? Was it even his right to correct Tony or to tell him his understanding of his experience is wrong? Howard is dead and Aaron is dead and Obi is dead. How can he take someone else's memory and make it better?

"I think Pepper would rather get real shoes than a shoe clock," is all he said in the end. Tony stares at him for one long minute, his eyes alert and penetrating, before he apparently decides something.

"I'll have you know, bigger is always better, and who wouldn't want their favorite thing to be ten feet tall and tell the time?"

"Your girlfriend?" Steve asked.

And if Tony had been injured in the past, if he sometimes seemed a bit injured still, well, he was a successful businessman, a passionate boyfriend to Pepper, a super hero to the world, a good friend to Steve. Tony was alright. And if Howard was a bit redeemed in Steve's eyes, that wasn't a bad thing either.


End file.
